Health, Socioeconomic Status and Self-Perception in the Elderly: An Application of the Interpersonal Checklist

Abstract

One-hundred and thirty-four men and women in the Bonn Longitudinal Study of Aging (BLSA) sample from sixty-two to eighty-one years of age were tested and re-tested a year later using the Interpersonal Checklist (ICL) to study the effects of health, sex, socioeconomic status and time of self perception. Preliminary item analysis justified the use of the ICL for older people. A multiple analysis of variance for repeated measures with the factors SEX, SES, and TIME yielded two interactions for “rebellious-distrustful (FG by sex × health) and “self effacing-masochistic” (HI by time × health) and three main-effects for “agressive-sadistic” (DE by sex), “self-effacing-masochistic” (HI by SES) and “docile-dependent” (IK by time).